The Music Department's Nathan James Dearden has been selected for the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain's Young Composers Scheme.
The highly competitive Young Composers Scheme offers four composers a fully-funded, year-long programme of professional development. The composers will work with their peers in the National Youth Choir and NYCGB Fellowship Scheme over the coming year to create new music and receive opportunities including a recording session for a worldwide digital release on NMC Recordings. A digital album of their works will be released in early 2021.
Nathan, who hails from Rhondda Cynon Taf in Wales, said:
I am overwhelmed to have been selected for this residency. Exploring the theme of one's cultural identity this year with this wonderful community of musicians is one close to my heart, creating music with the singers, for the singers.
As well as studying for his PhD in Composition, Nathan is the Department of Music's Performance Manager and was also recently appointed as a Visiting Lecturer. Other recent achievements include:
- a commission from Welsh National Opera for a large-scale work for youth choir and massed choir for people living with or affected by dementia, in association with Swansea Youth Music and Musical Memories, for performance at the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea, in March 2020.
- a BBC Radio 3 broadcast of a work created with the Swansea Philharmonic Choir, 3 postcards, written as part of Making Music UK’s 2019 Adopt-a-Composer Scheme.
